HOW TO BUY A HOME WHEN RELOCATING
Trust the Local Experts
With our extensive military relocation experience and our expertise with the local area, we are well equipped to assist you throughout your home-buying process. We maintain an extensive list of DND-approved contacts for lawyers and home inspectors. Our service is designed to make your home-buying, or selling, process as smooth as possible.
When helping you relocate to a new home, we make sure that your top priorities are taken into consideration. For families, nearby schools and other neighborhood features are particularly important. We are happy to provide a list of options that can be tailored to your desired price range. Barry MacMillan also helps with inspections, negotiations, and closings.
Royal LePage Sales Representatives Know Communities
Your Local Real Estate Experts
Royal LePage sales representatives live and work in the communities of buyers and sellers they represent. As a result, sales representatives know area market conditions, including price and availability and have access to current financing and mortgage rates to help ease the stress associated with buying or selling a home.
Our extensive training also means sales representatives understand the legal complexities associated with a home purchase or sale, including titles, taxes, surveys as well as negotiable parts of a contract — all to help clients secure the best possible terms.
The Power of MLS®
Through our Royal LePage Listing Service sales representatives have access to Multiple Listing Services (MLS), an electronic database which offers a host of information on a property, including detailed property features, real estate taxes, and the recent sale prices of homes — tools that can help determine the true value of a home. MLS® information is updated constantly; sales representatives have access to homes the minute they become listed in the system.
As your search begins, Barry MacMillan, your Local Relocation Expert, will want to know the answers to these questions:
Where have you selected to live?
What style of home do you wish to buy — Detached, Townhouse, Condo, etc.?
How much mortgage have you been pre-approved for?
Are there any special features or requirements you need in your home?
Based on your answers they will begin showing you house on the market that match those criteria. How quickly you discover the home your dreams will vary greatly, you could find it when you view that first home or you might look at a number of homes with none of them catching your interest. Rest assured, the home you’re looking for is out there, and when you find it, you’ll be ready to make an offer.
Your Royal LePage Sales Representative will provide expert advice on how to prepare your offer but ultimately it’s your offer and all the decisions are yours.
Your Royal LePage Sales Representative will arrange to have your offer presented to the Seller through the listing agent and advise you if they accept, reject or counter your offer and provide you with good advice you will need to proceed.
If your offer is accepted, the next steps are closing and moving into your new home once all conditions are met. If your offer is rejected and another offer was accepted, then it’s time to continue your search. If you offer is countered, you can accept their counter offer, reject it, or make a counter proposal of your own. Your sales representative will guide through each of these scenarios.
Once your offer has been accepted, Barry MacMillan, will monitor the progression of your offer, ensuring that all conditions are met on time and ensuring things progress properly until closing.
HOUSE HUNTING TRIP WITH BARRY MACMILLAN
Features of Your House Hunting Trip at Toronto
- Our Experienced Local Agents will communicate with you and your family to determine your exact needs. We can communicate by phone, Skype or email.
- All new listings that match your criteria will be automatically sent to you. Follow up communication can further fine tune your needs and requirements.
- We will book appointments for all of the properties that interest you, coordinate a home showing schedule and provide a list of recommended accommodations for your House Hunting Trip.
- On arrival in Toronto area you will be given all the Listings that met your criteria and a List of Home Inspectors and Lawyers to assist in your purchase.
- We will attend your home inspection with you and schedule two walk-through appointments of your purchased property before the closing date.
- We can provide information on schools, recreation, and any other information if required.
CITY OF TORONTO INFORMATION
City of Toronto
When Europeans first arrived at the site of present-day Toronto, the vicinity was inhabited by the Iroquois, who had displaced the Wyandot (Huron) people, occupants of the region for centuries before c. 1500. The name Toronto is likely derived from the Iroquoian word tkaronto, meaning “place where trees stand in the water”. This refers to the northern end of what is now Lake Simcoe, where the Huron had planted tree saplings to corral fish. However, the word “Toronto”, meaning “plenty” also appears in a 1632 French lexicon of the Huron language, which is also an Iroquoian language. It also appears on French maps referring to various locations, including Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe, and several rivers. A portage route from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron running through this point, known as the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail, led to widespread use of the name.
In the 1660s, the Iroquois established two villages within what is today Toronto, Ganatsekwyagon on the banks of the Rouge River and Teiaiagon on the banks of the Humber River. By 1701, the Mississauga had displaced the Iroquois, who abandoned the Toronto area at the end of the Beaver Wars, with most returning to their base in present-day New York.
In the 17th century, the area was a crucial link for travel, with the Humberand Rouge rivers providing a shortcut to the upper Great Lakes. These routes together were known as the Toronto Passage.
French traders founded Fort Rouillé in 1750 (the current Exhibition grounds were later developed here), but abandoned it in 1759 during the Seven Years’ War. The British defeated the French and their indigenous allies in the war, and the area became part of the British colony of Quebec in 1763.
During the American Revolutionary War, an influx of British settlers came here as United Empire Loyalists fled for the British-controlled lands north of Lake Ontario. The Crown granted them land to compensate for their losses in the Thirteen Colonies. The new province of Upper Canada was being created and needed a capital. In 1787, the British Lord Dorchester arranged for the Toronto Purchase with the Mississauga of the New Credit First Nation, thereby securing more than a quarter of a million acres ) of land in the Toronto area. Dorchester intended the location to be named Toronto.
In 1793, Governor John Graves Simcoe established the town of York on the Toronto Purchase lands, naming it after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. Simcoe decided to move the Upper Canada capital from Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) to York, believing that the new site would be less vulnerable to attack by the United States. The York garrison was constructed at the entrance of the town’s natural harbour, sheltered by a long sand-bar peninsula. The town’s settlement formed at the eastern end of the harbour behind the peninsula, near the present-day intersection of Parliament Street and Front Street (in the “Old Town” area).